Don't Touch the Tiger or He Will Bite You

    A few weeks ago Abu had her turn as Star of the Week in her third grade classroom. This was something each student looks forward to...their chance to 'shine' and share with their classmates who they are.
   
   They have to fill out a form of questions, such as 'what are your favorite books, movies, shows, etc.' It asks for hobbies and your favorite subject in school. They can also bring in photos and toys that they want to share. Think of it as a non digital Facebook.

    She carefully read each question, concentrating hard as she wrote her answers. Then we went through my vast collection of digital photos and she picked out which ones she wanted made into prints. Finally she picked out three stuffed animals, not her absolute favorites but runner ups.
    "Mom, I can't be without Candy Cane and Alaska for a week. A whole week. And they have to stay in that classroom all by themselves." She shudders, hugging her most favorite toys to her chest. They are both puppies and always in her arms when she falls asleep...or she doesn't go to sleep.
     I nodded in complete understanding. "So you want to take two other puppies and Hanson?"
    "Hanson is huge." She says, looking at the large tiger she won at last year's States Fair. Not only had this tiny eight year old won one of the biggest prizes at the Fair, she accomplished it in just two throws and three bucks.
   
     If you want to see a carnival guy sweat...allow him to think that your sweet eight year is a protege in baseball. Don't tell him that the best two throws she has ever taken in her entire life, just happen to land in his - perfectly tilted buckets so the balls bounce out of them-  ball game. Abu was ecstatic as she lugged that toy around, grinning every time the adults with their small prizes would stare at her or ask her how she won it.
    Of course, we had to ignore the calls from the carnival guys...they kept trying to convince her to come play again and perhaps she would win a bigger prize...but she would have to risk losing the tiger.
    Smart kid...she would hug her tiger really tight and tell them no.


    On the day we were supposed to drop off the items, she desperately wanted me to make a sign for Hanson.
    "Mom, we have to make a sign for around Hanson's neck." She's flying frantically around the living room, trying to convince me that we have time to do this in the one minute we had left until it time to leave for school.
     The look on her face was pleading and sad and coming from Abu is always hard to resist.
    "Oh, right. What does it need to say?" I asked, quickly digging some cardboard out of the recycling and cutting a piece down to a square. I found an extra piece of string and made a necklace so it would hang around his neck. Then I took out my Sharpie. It's amazing how fast a Mom can move when she has to.
     "Write: Don't Touch the Tiger or He Would Bite You."
     I laughed. "A warning, huh? Good idea. We don't want any of your classmates getting hurt."
    She went to school with a huge smile on her face.

    I helped her carry her items into the classroom. And then as I'm looking at them I realize what she has done.
    Abu is many things. She's sweet and kind. She's smart but has to work hard to achieve it. She likes to have fun but is always concerned about other people.
    And she has a quiet but creative sense of humor.
    All the items she brought...I realized she picked to make other people laugh. To bring them joy. Her answers on her form were all on the funny side, like 'What is your favorite subject?'
     "Recess." She answers.

    Her photos were all about being funny. There's one with Bean making faces at the camera and wagging her finger at it. Another with Buddy howling with her Daddy. There's a photo with her pretending to attack Bean and another with her toothbrush sticking out her mouth.

    She picked photos of having fun in the snow. And goofy photos with her cousins and her uncle. There's a photo of her wearing these huge glasses with wacky eyes painted on them.

   And then of course, there's Hanson, the fierce tiger with a handmade sign hanging around his neck warning people not to touch him or he might bite.

    "Did you pick the funny things on purpose, Abu?" I whisper quietly to her.
    She grins at me. "Mom, I like to make people laugh."
    Translation: I like to make people happy.

     Hanson was quite the hit and every day for the entire week she was Star of the Week, she brought home stories of the other students making jokes about trying to touch the tiger and not getting bit. Each story was accompanied by an Abu grin. And apparently they all loved the wacky photos too. If her goal was to make people laugh, she certainty succeeded.
    
    She certainty reminded me that spreading joy and happiness is free and easy. You just have to find the goofy in life. It's all around us, we just have to find it. Just go back to the time when Recess was your favorite subject and wacky glasses were fun to wear.
    Then you have it...spreading joy...Abu style. :) 

What a Bully Leaves Behind

    Back in September I wrote about Bean and her troubles with mean girls at school. Unfortunately, that day in the lunch room was not a one time problem and over the last six months it has escalated into Bean being bullied almost daily.
    My wonderful daughter, usually so full of life and spunk, now thinks that everyone hates her and that she isn't good at anything. All because of the malice words and attitude of one other person who we will call the Mean Girl.
    Just over a week ago Bean woke up and instead of getting ready for school, sat in her bed and refused to go. At first I was upset and threatened to ground her for weeks if she didn't get ready for school because I thought she was just being difficult. And then I started listening, really listening to her words and the depth of emotion behind them.
    "Mom. I can't go. I just can't. Everyone hates me. I'm miserable. Don't make me go. Just let me stay home. I'll do all my schoolwork and I'll help you watch the little girls." She has her clutched fist to her chest; to her heart; as she pleads with me. As if the pain inside is so big and consuming she has to physically put a hand on it to control it.
    I called the school and told them she wouldn't be coming to school because of being bullied. And at that moment the enormity of just how vicious this bully had actually been acting towards my daughter finally sunk in.
   And at that moment I realized things would have to drastically change in her school environment or I would keep her home for the rest of the year. But before I get into where I'm at with dealing with the school let me highlight some of what has gone on in the past six months.

   It starts with a stupid invite for a sleep over. Bean started making friends with this girl, Kay who owns horses and was allowed to invite two friends to her sleep over birthday party. Originally, she had planned on her best friend and the Mean Girl. That was, until her and Bean started being friends. Then, suddenly, Bean was invited and the Mean Girl was left out. (Are birthday parties worth the jealousies and problems that come with them unless you can invite the whole, damn class?)
   Anyway, Mean Girl become intensely jealous and started talking behind Bean's back until one day at lunch she made Kay announce to the entire fifth grade that Bean was no longer invited to the party, that she was inviting the Mean Girl instead and oh, yeah Kay and Bean were no longer friends either.
   Bean came home that day in tears. There was no warning that Kay would all a sudden turn on her like this, they had just talked and laughed the day before while waiting for their rides after school. And she was so hurt that someone could humiliate her like that in front of the entire fifth grade class.
   I told Bean to ignore Mean Girl. That some people were like that and that Bean had plenty of friends. But for whatever reason, Mean Girl decided to bully Bean. Over the next few weeks this girl went out of her way to constantly and repeatedly verbally abuse my daughter.
    So I told Bean to ignore her.
    That didn't work.
    I told Bean to give her sincere compliments in the hope that being extra nice to her would throw her off.
    It actually worked for a day or two and then she went right back to her abusive ways.
    I told Bean to tell her to knock it off and that she didn't care what Mean Girl said.
    This only resulted in Mean Girl calling her ugly, stupid, dumb, and a host of other things in front of all the other girls. But not in the front of the teachers.
   Never in front of the teachers.
   Last fall, during conferences we talked to the teacher. At this time Bean still wanted to figure things out for herself, so she didn't want a lot of teacher involvement but we did want the teacher aware.
   The teacher had some talks with all the fifth grade girls about what it means to be a friend.
   But of course, this meant nothing to Mean Girl.

   Then the Mean Girl took it to another level. She started being extra nice and giving presents to Bean's best friend. Suddenly, whenever Bean would complain to her Best Friend about Mean Girl, her Best Friend would staunchly defend the other girl and tell Bean that she was wrong and was a horrible person for saying such things.
   No matter how Bean tried to her Best Friend that Mean Girl was calling her names, or telling her that her clothes were horrible, she wouldn't listen. And their four year friendship died.
   Bean was devastated. With just a few false words of praise and some stupid gifts her Best Friend hated her.
   We went to the teacher again.
    There was another group discussion on what it means to be friends but nothing was done with the Mean Girl.
    Then for a while Bean found some new friends and even though Mean Girl still tried to torment her, it wasn't such a big deal because Bean had friendship.
    But at the Book fair, after school hours, Bean and Abu were playing in the gym while I was up on the stage closing down for the day. Suddenly Abu comes running around the corner, crying and upset. Bean is mad. The Mean Girl, who had already left, had hit Abu twice in the leg, tried to tell her it was funny and then called Abu, "Bean's stupid little sister."
    I should have complained the next day. I should have said something and made a fuss. And I'm so sorry I didn't. But I haven't seen it and it had been after school hours. Schools usually don't like to take a lot of action if the bell has already rung. But I should have done something.

   After Christmas, Mean Girl decided to steal the rest of Bean's friends. She started being extra nice to them and giving them presents. It takes two weeks for them to start ignoring Bean and then outright refuse to be her friend. And nothing Bean could say would fix the situation. At this point, I'm pissed. This isn't a situation of just girls having friendship problems, these are the actions of a bully.
   I went to the teacher and the principal. They said they would talk to the Mean Girl and Bean.
   Mean Girl told the principal she didn't do all those things Bean said but she was really sorry if Bean thought that. Her super sweet apology worked on everyone except me and Bean.
   For the next few weeks Mean Girl didn't talk to Bean. And in the meantime Bean made some other friends but things were not smooth between them.
   Now, I'm not sure if by this point Bean is just super frustrated with dealing with people that any little misunderstanding is taken wrongly or that these other girls just aren't a good match for her. But there was a lot of tension between them.
   Finally, they decided they didn't want to be friends with her either. That meant, at this point, there was no other girls to play with. She was a complete outcast in the entire fifth grade, unless you count the boys, which she didn't.
   Bean asked me how could an entire fifth grade hate her?
  I didn't have a good answer for her.

  When Bean refused to go to school, I went straight to the teacher, desperate to find an answer to this problem. She was upset with Bean because the other girls had gone to her and complained about Bean telling their secrets and that's why they didn't want to be friends with her.
   I told her that wasn't the full problem. That the Mean Girl had caused a great deal of these problems but the teacher was more concerned about Bean's secret telling.
   Except Bean insists that she didn't. And at this point, even if she had, that isn't the main problem. The entire problem has always boiled down to the Mean Girl.
   The teacher and I went to the principal to talk to him about it. They were out of ideas. Maybe more group sessions with all the girls. Perhaps Bean could talk to the counselor and learn how to deal with bullies.
   What? Did I fall down the rabbit hole? My child has to learn how to deal with a bully but the BULLY doesn't have to learn how to be a decent human being????

   Bean made one more day of school and then last Monday she couldn't make herself go. Literally, she could not force herself to go into that hostile environment and deal with the situation.
   I promptly told the principal that if something was not done with the bullying I would be pulling my child from the school. That statement got some attention. So he spent the entire morning talking to the girls in Bean's class and trying to figure out what was going on.
   Except what the girls had to say was what had happened over the last two weeks with no one getting along. They kept saying Bean had told their secrets. And that was the problem.
   Oh, and that the Mean Girl had been telling them not to play with Bean.

   But when the principal sat down to discuss his findings with me what did he focus on?  Not the fact that other girls had confirmed a problem with Mean Girl but that Bean kept telling secrets.

   I like my girls' school. I'm treasurer of the PTO and have spent years raising money and donating my time to help the school. I get along with the principal fairly well and most of the teachers. My children are well behaved, study hard and always make Citizen of the Year. They don't lie, cause problems and they talk respectfully to their teachers.

   But when Bean is tormented by another little girl on nearly a daily basis, instead of being dealt with, we are told to learn how to deal with bullies and that even though our school is suppose to have a zero tolerance for bullying, no one will do anything.

  At this point, I'm at a lost of what to do. I feel frustrated, mad as hell, and disappointed. I realize that if Bean actually did tell the secrets of these three girls then she has to realize they probably won't be friends with her. That's a lesson of friendship.
   With that being said, that problem between Bean and those three girls is a minor issue. The main problem here is the bullying. The Mean Girl has in the past year done the following things: name called on a constant basis; physically assaulted Abu; put down everything Bean tried to do, including her clothes, her school work and the things she said; told the other girls to ostracized her; and purposely destroyed Bean's relationships with other girls that Mean Girl didn't even bother to be friends with until she saw it could hurt Bean.
    If you Google what it means to be a bully, then the Mean Girl fits the definition. But the school can't see this?
 
   I can see the effects of being bullied in my daughter and I won't allow it to continue. What that means, I'm not sure. Do we fight the school further? Do we finish our elementary school career at home? Do I hire a lawyer?
   I'm not sure. But it stops now. I'm so tired of Mean Girls.